by Kara-Leah Grant

After reading all of the responses from other teachers, I began to wonder… how on earth can I call myself a yoga teacher?

I have no qualifications.

I’ve never attended a teacher training of any real length.

I’ve never studied under a guru, nor a teacher for any length of time.

I’m a long way from mastering asana to any degree.

So how did I end up teaching? And should I even be a yoga teacher at all?

Well my first foray into teaching was a combination of circumstance and opportunity.

I was at a gym astanga yoga class and the teacher couldn’t make it. There were only three of us, regulars, and I felt comfortable enough to offer to lead the other two students through. Not teach them as such, but just remind them of what the postures were.

It was an accident of timing -I was there, the teacher wasn’t. But it was also a matter of destiny – I had a history of tutoring at school, of teaching dance, both my parents were teachers… teaching came naturally.

Yet teaching yoga is about far more than just teaching. A yoga teacher is not like an aerobics teacher, nor a dance teacher. You can’t just learn the moves well enough so you can pass them along to others. My history of teaching in no way qualified me as a yoga teacher, and I was very aware of this.

But opportunities to lead classes kept presenting themselves. Friends wanted guidance. The teacher didn’t show up again. And then she had to quit teaching because she was pregnant and I was offered the class.

Dilemma. I was enjoying leading people through the postures, focusing mainly on a modified Power Yoga sequence that had been my home practice for the past few months. But I hadn’t trained as a yoga teacher. I hadn’t studied consistently with one teacher. I was largely self taught. How could I call myself a yoga teacher?

In many ways, I felt like a fraud. Yet deep down, what I was doing also felt right. So I kept on going…

But the dangers of teaching from this place were brought home to me a few months ago when Swami Karma Karuna of Anahata Yoga Retreat sent me an email expressing concern about the context in which a Sanskrit term had been used.

She said:

In my years traveling and teaching around the world, I have found that many people take the ancient practices of yoga lightly and write about, speak about, teach about them in a partial way.

We as writers and inspirers of others on the path need to be very aware of how we use the sanskrit terms and I feel should do our best to get an in depth experience and view of practices in order to give people a more full understanding.

That initial email led to an illuminating and thoughtful exchange between us which reminded me of how vital it is to truly know the depths of what one teaches. I realised that I had been using some Sanskrit terms in my classes thinking I knew what they meant, but only passing on incomplete or partial knowledge. This realisation again brought up this question for me.

Was I really qualified enough to call myself a yoga teacher?

When I said yes to the yoga classes that were offered to me, I took my commitment to my students seriously. My home practice had been solid, but sporadic, but I knew if I was going to teach then I needed to have something to teach from, so I began to practice daily. I ordered a couple hundred dollars worth of yoga texts from Amazon and immersed myself in their teachings. The only thing I couldn’t do because of my locale was find a teacher of my own.

Is it possible to access the profound benefits of yoga by dipping into many different practices and traditions? Or is it necessary to dedicate ourselves to lengthy, in-depth study and practice of one tradition?

After reading it, I wondered, if one is dipping into many practices, can one truly be a teacher? Does one know anything deep enough to be able to pass it along with any authenticity?

Many modern yoga teachers make their own systems, yet have not fully realized themselves as was the tradition in the past. One did not share teachings in past times until they had a high degree of realization within themselves.

Now we become Reiki Masters in a few months???? Yoga teachers in a one month training????? Then the student also learns it partially and mixes it with their other teachings and in this way some of the great depth is lost and changed and misunderstood.

I gotta say, I agree. Even though I’m teaching with even less than one month’s teacher training (more on that later), I believe that the concept of “yoga teacher” has been greatly diluted by the rate at which teacher trainings churn out the graduates. One month of training does not a teacher make.

By the time I came to Wellington and started teaching up there, I still hadn’t done any teacher training. My home practice was solid, it extended far beyond just the mat, and I read widely. But still I craved more. Especially because my home practice had evolved out of the set postures of astanga into something far more intuitive and a little niggle in the back of my head was concerned that maybe this wasn’t really yoga anymore and was just me playing around.

Enter Twee Merrigan and Prana Flow – a style of yoga which emphasizes connecting to the flow of prana within. A light went on. This was how I had been practicing at home.

Suddenly there was a bridge between my home practice and how to teach that helped me to access the authenticity of my own learnings over many years. My time with Twee was tight – four days here, three days there. But her teachings meant I saw how all those years of self-practice and exploration had given me a depth of experiential knowledge that I could call upon to teach within this particular style.

Plus there is one other experience I’ve had that has given my teaching a depth or understanding that likely can’t be found in teacher trainings.

Five or so years ago I had a partial kundalini awakening, brought about by a combination of factors including psychedelic drugs.

That awakening led to two psychotic breaks with reality, a month apart. My body began doing spontaneous yoga kriya that I’d never learned before – I wasn’t doing yoga, the yoga was doing me.

All kinds of weird and wonderful things happened to me, to my consciousness, at this time. Everything was broken open, and blasted through. The secrets of the universe, of god, of humanity were all revealed. And all of the darkness and unaddressed issues of my psyche rose up to torment me with madness – madness of the kind that required commitment to a psych ward.

Yep.

Been Mad.

Got the certificate to prove it.

And had to stay put until I’d sufficiently proved my sanity and so was allowed back out into the real world.

Putting myself back together again was horrendous. It was a long, slow, process of integration as I began to make sense of what I’d seen, heard, done, understood and realised. And yeah, I can see in hindsight how incredibly dangerous it was to mix yoga, meditation and drugs the way I did. Stupid, ignorant, dangerous and could’ve ended far, far worse than it did.

As Paul Balch explained in the Anatomy of a Yogi workshop I did a few weekends ago, psychiatric institutions are full of people who’ve dabbled in consciousness expansion combined with drugs. I was incredibly fortunate to only spend a short time in a psych ward, and to be able to integrate my experience in a meaningful way afterward.

With many years, and much reflection and practice, between myself now and the self that went mad, I can understand the truth of my experience – the weird and wonderful ways in which the unconscious, the ego, the intuitive self and the suppressed yearnings of the heart twisted and combined with delusion to create my reality at that time.

This experience in and of itself in no way adds to my teaching. But the process I was required to do in order to untangle the truth from the delusions and the realisations from the madness to become whole again has informed my teaching.

I now have an understanding of the ways in which mind, emotions and body intertwine and play out, combined with an appreciation for the power of prana to move us from within us and direct our practice.

As a result, I see yoga not as a posture, but as a process that results in a posture. Yoga is the stripping back of the layers of self to reveal the truth beneath. i.e. the being that makes us so beyond all the facades of the ego engineered to protect us from the pain of a human life.

Now, getting back into teaching again after the birth of my son Samuel, I’ve been pondering what to teach and how to teach. Teaching a set series of asana based on a class plan is one thing. Students get a yoga “workout” and learn something about the asana they’re led through. They feel great after class.

But that’s not what I’m there to teach. If the word yoga means to yoke or to bind, that to me means yoga is about connection. When I teach yoga, I’m teaching connection. The asana, pranayama, mantra, mudra, bandra, meditation… it’s all a means with which to teach connection.

Connection to breath.

Connection to self.

Connect to prana.

That’s it.

Nothing more.

Nothing less.

I know, from my own experience, that asana lives within us. That all we need do is connect to breath, to prana, and to get out of the way, and that asana will be revealed to us.

I don’t need to teach you how to do Standing Bow.

I just need to teach you how to get out of the way and then Standing Bow will reveal itself to you.

So does this make me a yoga teacher?

Dunno.

But it seems to be working for my students.

And in the end, I guess what really makes me a yoga teacher is the students that choose to come and do yoga with me.

So to my students… I am forever in gratitude. That you spend time with me and allow me the great gift of sharing my understanding with you. It is a precious gift. It is, in the end, what makes me a teacher.

So as long as people want to learn from me… I guess I’ll be a teacher.

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Comments

Thank you for your beautiful & courageous reflections KL. I admire your openness and honesty. I also like your descriptions of letting the asanas reveal themselves to us. That’s increasingly my experience too. I feel it very strongly where I am at the moment (in Mysore, India). I’ve also been understanding more of the benefits of having a regular systematic practice (in my case ashtanga vinyasa). The outer constraints enable inner freedom to flourish and I’m now realising all sorts of stuff that I’ve been learning without knowing it. Whatever practice works for people is all good though!

I’ve also been realising the importance of having a practice that enables a gradual dismantling of the defensive ego, so that we do not lose our psyche. You’re very lucky to have come back from that episode (and it probably also shows your strength of spirit). I’m glad you did! 🙂

Hi Kara-Leah, I just wanted to let you know how amazed and inspired I am by your latest column…I was blown away by your story, your honesty. I haven’t really heard “drugs” as a topic being mentioned in any yoga context, and I found what you had to say very thought provoking.I stopped drinking 15 weeks ago today, which I am sure is related to my practice-the next one to go: opiates. I have recently increased my classes to 3 times a week, and am loving it.I also love reading the interviews from the lunchbox, they help me to learn more. Thanx, Gisele

This is a question I battle, too — as I list teachers on my site, I’m trying to figure out what the credentials for being listed are. Can anyone call themselves a yoga teacher? Do we pretend that a 200-hr certification does the job? Some of the most well-known teachers have never been certified. So it’s definitely a gray area. Your sense of responsibility to your students, and your long-term commitment to self-study and home practice, is what I would hope to see in anyone calling themselves a yoga teacher. If we had those kind of stats on everyone, the certifications would be much less relevant, IMHO.

“it’s important to have a practice that enables a gradual dismantling of the defensive ego, so that we do not lose our psyche.”

Yoga is indeed a very powerful practice, and needs to be approached with respect.. something I was so unaware of. A systematic practice provide me with much needed consistency as you say, and I do also enjoy the freedom to work with what every arises on the mat, understanding as I do now that it’s oh too easy to get the ego confused with true guidance.

Hey Gisele,

I really appreciate your comment because I have been considering writing more about yoga, drugs, addiction and consciousness as it is something I have experienced first hand. Your comment reminds me that other people have likely experienced similar things could perhaps benefit from hearing these stories.

Keep practicing, and enjoy your journey.

Hey Erica,

I can understand your dilemma for sure! I guess the reason they introduced 200-hr certification was to give us an easy way to know whether or not someone was qualified to be a yoga teacher… but it’s only part of the story really.

I really loved your honesty. I have though about the questions you have posed too…what makes a yoga teacher? I have met teachers who quote their years of practice, qualifications and put ‘director’ under their name.. I feel that to be a ‘true’ teacher you need to feel the essence…feel the connection within yourself, with others, within the world. Sometimes I feel the yoga teachers who continually want more qualifications, are themselves, trying to find that very connection…more qualifications will not do it. It is about the finding yourself and finding your way. If being a yoga teacher is about walking the walk….you are one of the most real yoga teachers I have read about. Thank you

You bring up a really good point – what is it that makes us seek out outside affirmation?

It’s something my partner Luke asked me in the weeks leading up to my teacher training with Shiva Rea – he reckoned I didn’t need it. And in many ways he was right – I didn’t need it. But I wanted it. I wanted to turbocharge my practice my being exposed to a teacher with a deep wealth of knowledge, and I wanted to make all those connections with other students/teachers.

The certification was an aside really, and I don’t even know if I’ll have enough hours to get it after being delayed because of visa issues.

Look forward to meeting up with you in person again – I remember you from that Swami Shantimurti workshop in Queenstown a few years back now…

kara-leah, i was bouncing around to see what last bit of “whatever” i came across before shutting down my online search & find on yoga, fitness, anatomy, “whatever” 😉

tomorrow morning i start a long series of even-longer days and long-enough drives for training with lex gillan in houston

i’m gonna miss seeing what’s new on yoga lunch box, magazine of yoga, yogadork, and others (like liveloveyoga, daily bandha, etc) (for the time being) – but i’m starting to get twitchy itchin’ to see what will become of me 😉

your post, here, over 1/2 a year ago, not only still resonates, but resonates right now, with me; clearly there’s a continuity to your honest approach, your search, to “you”

credentialing – like an inspection sticker for a car, meets minimum standards; question then is does a student want this teacher? can that teacher hold students? then evolve from that

spiritual heritage knowledge – know or decide where, in this point in time (what else can i do?) one places one’s principle core spiritual base: hegelian spirals? western notions of freedom and society? 5000 yr old texts? mayan ruins? 500 year old asanas? 200 year old? 200 year old science? post industrial capitalism? american indian sun gods? chinese meridians? early roman christianity? or even: not sure, yet?

i believe, that current core, then informs how the other types of spiritual heritage, if any, are “valid” or need “knowing” beyond a certain point –

but, and big but for me 😉 is to not only recognize that, but openly state that, to anyone it matters or should know: students, friends, family, etc

ie, i may not know something the same way someone 5000 or 2000 or 200 years ago experienced or knew something i’m interested in, and may want to teach, but i’ll say so

and if i know my base, where i’m “coming from” i’ll say that too

for me, at this point in time, i grind away from an intuitively felt spiritual base, partially formed by my early catholic upbring, modified by readings studies and experiences dating from the late 60’s in philosophy, starting a family at 18, and held up to a recently expanding swell of new knowledge regarding fitness, grounded in current knowledge in anatomy, movement, exercise science, and more

my spiritual base is from a sense of “we’re individuals in one-ness”

my physical base is from current contemporary science, at the point i currently have “learned-to”

so 😉 i sometimes struggle to accept people who individually “fit” in our one-ness in a different “space” than i am used to 😉

and, I don’t accept poses or postures or movements, regardless of lineage (ancient india, hispanic salsa, even sit-ups) that don’t “mesh” with safe and effective science for each of our bodies as i am continually learning about them

in essence, i will attempt no harm, conscientiously, mindfully, as fully as i am able, by applying those two guideposts, my two evolving revealing processes of finding-out

lot of words, but the confluence of your honesty, and my impending immersion, met, and here i am 😉

You pack so much into this comment! Which I reckon we could boil down to just one thing – what is Truth. Our truth. What is true for us in this moment. What do we need from yoga right now to open up and shine brightly.

Enjoy your training, may it be blessed with wisdom, and no doubt I’ll see you on the site when you get back!

I googled “how to teach yoga uncertified” and I came across your blog. I’m book marking it! 🙂 I really loved this blog. I’m glad I found you. You’re inspiring. I’m a yoga teacher in Los Angeles and I write a blog as well, it’s called “Regarding Everything”…regarding the body, mind, spirit and the journey through this so-called, funny thing called life. http://www.amregardingeverything.com

Thank you for this post! SO much of your attitude and philosophy resonates with me on a deep level. I too have had some consciousness expansion due to psychedelics, meditation and yoga, though I did not have such an intense experience as it sounds like you did. I am now faced with an opportunity to teach yoga at a local gym. I was approached by a friends sister who just purchased the gym. My friend recommended me because of my Reiki practice, experience and advocacy of yoga and meditation and also because not long ago I pseudo taught a group of friends in our “yoga club”. I am honored and excited at this opportunity. My goal was to become certified this year and already I have this opportunity at my feet! My biggest fear is that because this is a small town that the teachers whose classes I attend will be upset or offended that I have stepped into a role that they spent more time preparing for. I have a lot of experience teaching and a passion to learn and improve myself, but is this enough to justify, especially to other local teachers, taking on this responsibility? My gut says yes, because I will never betray the trust of my students…but my mind is giving me all kinds of mixed feedback! Do you have any words of wisdom for me?.? Namaste, Kaycie

Lovely to hear from you. If you read your comment, you’ll find you’ve answered your own question. You know what you need to do, but as is totally natural, you’ll looking for that support and reassurance that you’re on the right track.

It sounds like you’ve got a clear understanding of the responsibility you’re taking on too. Teaching isn’t just throwing a few postures together in class once a week. It’s making a deeper commitment to your own practice, study and understanding of yoga – out of that arises teaching. You’ll know what you need to do to support your students well – focus on honing your own home yoga practice, studing yoga, and maybe see if you can find a more experienced teacher to mentor you. There’s a lot to be said for having a mentor!

Oh thank you! I am so grateful right now. Not only did I find your article just in time to give me some encouragement, but the next day I also realized I DO have a mentor! She is a close friend and a wonderful yoga instructor as well. She lives in another state, but it just so happens that my sister is driving there next week and offered to take me along. Now I get to study with her before I start teaching my classes. If that’s not a big green “GO AHEAD” sign from the Universe I don’t know what is! 🙂

I love your website. Thanks for the articles and support. Perhaps you’ll let me contribute to your site someday! 🙂 I love writing/blogging/discussing wellness in any way that I can!

Hello! I came across your article and i absolutely agree ! Im an undergrad law student who fell in love with Yoga my first year of college. I took an entire year to try and perfect the basic asanas and when i was perfectly comfortable i moved on to inversions and variations. I got such good feedback that some people even asked me to entertain the idea of teaching others.i didnt come to a decision until 2 years later when i was confident in my abilities, my connection, and my passion to yoga. But based in Miami, unfortunately the art that Yoga represents spiritually has been lost and Yoga is seen as the “hip ” thing. Very few actually understand the value that Yoga upholds . Being uncertified i went ahead and decided to share my passion and love with others through teaching but sadly the question” are you certified” came up, to the point other teaches bashed me for even attempting to teach and claiming i would injure my students. This saddened me to be honest. Many have lost their way when it comes to yoga. When asked if im certified,i offer them a session and then ask them afterwards if they honestly believe a piece of paper determines my capabilities. I am happy to say that i now teach 2 yoga classes at a known Gym and my students are increasing. I absolutely LOVE your article and it.touched home. Thank you! Namaste

There are many questions around certification & certainly some of the best teachers aren’t certified. They have however studied and practiced for many decades. Yoga is an on-going journey and when we start teaching our commitment to the practice needs to also increase to reflect the greater responsibility we carry. How that looks will be different for each of us. I am now a 200HR certified teacher and the learning I did to gain that certificate made me a better teacher. I’m also studying regularly with a senior teacher, something that also helps me teaching enormously. And of course, I practice every day at home as well.

So stay your course, keep practicing, keep learning, keep challenging yourself and at some point, you may find a certification program that works for you – not because you’ll get a piece of paper at the end, but because you’ll learn so much throughout the experience.

Hello. thank you for sharing your story. I ran across your article while searching for information in regards to certifications in yoga.

I will try to keep this reply short, but I feel overwlemed to share my story with you. I have been practicing yoga for 6yrs now. Four at the same studio, with the same routine. I lived in a bigger city where yoga was excess able. Last summer i moved to a very small town, and I couldn’t find yoga classes anywhere. So I asked the local gym if they needed an instructor.

teaching yoga wasn’t something I had ever really thought of doing, I felt confedent enough to teach it and wanted to bring yoga to my small, Midwestern town. I realized this is my calling.

People thank me and tell me I’ve changed their lives.

I study techniques and variations.

Daily I practice my pranayama routine, kriya meditation, Fallowed by asanas … I do this routine for myself but also to better understand the style of yoga I teach.

Still I feel like a fraud.

My students are so important to me…I never would want to hurt them or make them feel uncomfortable. I want them to be confedent in me as an instructor.

Which is one reason I would like to become certified. I plan to take a certification this fall…

Until then I am thankful for the clients I have that trust I will lead them through a safe practice. And for the others who ask for my credentials all I can do is tell them the truth and show them how passionate I am about yoga.

Vanessa, I just saw your comment and I want to say that I encourage what you are doing! I practice Reiki and Tarot reading in my small hometown in IL. I have been a yoga practitioner for years and the opportunity arose back in January for me to teach at a local gym. I wasn’t certified, but the owner didn’t care! She said she had faith in me. But I have a fear that other teachers will judge me for not having done a proper certification program. I am always trying to learn more and offer the spiritual component as well as the mental and physical aspects of Yoga in my classes. I am so amazed at how receptive people have been in my small community. It has been a rewarding journey and I hope to someday get certified just for the sake of learning more! But for now I practice teaching and do my best to honor the Spirit of Yoga. I encourage you to keep it up and do what your heart tells you! Namaste, Kay

Thank you for your honest and inspiring post. Just yesterday I was offered an opportunity to teach yoga at a martial arts gym. I have been a yoga student for nearly 20 years and incorporate yoga when I lead warm ups in taekwondo class. My dream is to work with martial artists and MMA fighters, so what better place to start than with that clientele? However I am not certified and haven’t taken any yoga teacher trianing, which made me question my ethics and liability, not to mention the confidence my potential students would have in me. This post gives me some hope and a lot to think about if I move forward with this opportunity.

Because you love yoga you want to share it with the world. This is understandable. Your heart is in the right place. Ahimsa, non-harming is a basic tenet of yoga. when you “teach” yoga without the extensive training, you risk hurting yourself and others. you may Think that you are simply Guiding others into postures and awareness, but you are doing this without intricate working knowledge of anatomy, safe effective alignment, and contraindications which exist to bring healing without pain. As a teacher and therapist in the Svaroopa style, immersion program under Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati, I KNOW how to work with physical bodies, mental emotional trappings, treating pain all in a trauma Informed and compassionate protocol.

I found this article because I’ve noticed people sharing yoga instruction who have no business doing such. Because YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW. What you dont know can HURT PEOPLE. you may not want to add this to yourkarmic debt.

In your experience of Kundalini yoga, you were aloud to receive too much opening too fast which caused you harm. A responsible practice would not have landed you in a psych ward. Kundalini energy wants to move and to heal us. But her upward movement is one we must be prepared for unfer expert care. I’m happy you’ve recovered as well as you have. I encourage you to commit yourself to training or stop teaching . Feel free to contact me for support in this. Bliss Yoga Therapy. facebok.com/Vicharabyphone In Loving Service, Padma

This was a really great read – thank you for sharing. Reminds me much of my own life journey. For me, everything you have done is ‘right’ because it has been right for you and worked. I came across the same concerns about not having a ‘qualification’ but I learned that authenticity comes with knowing what you know and what you don;t know and yoga is also about being able to be with others – and if others happen to like your vibe then you can’t be doing much wrong. We learn together – the students teach us too. Just because someone guides does not make them the master, we all have our own roles to play and we continue to learn each day. The psych ward – no sweat – I done the madness too 🙂 except I was always too stubborn to allow myself to be admitted – I instead had my ‘awakening’ by by bumping into ‘teachers’ and having epic story telling worth experiences and delving into books, and old texts and science and anything else that came my way. Anyway was really great to find something so refreshing and real (to my heart) as this on the internet. Hard to come by these days.

ja…I got sober on the mat (and going to NA + counselling). Now almost 2 years later I find my practise is essential – and about to head to Arhanta Ashram India to do a 200hr TT. I don’t think I will walk away from this a fully realised yoga teacher – I think I would be foolish if I did! My journey began long ago and it will continue for a long time. If at some point I am ready and the opportunity arises I will teach but I am mainly doing the training to immerse myself in all aspects and really learn. Surely this is my yoga?

Yeah, once I did do my training, in 2010, I discovered that I had learned far more about teaching through my own practice than I did at the teacher training. The TT was fantastic for helping me go deeper personally, and it did lay out some useful theory, plus turned me on to some great texts. But my teaching – turns out that springs from a deep place within that arises only from my own practice.

‘I haven’t really heard “drugs” as a topic being mentioned in any yoga context’

In Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras (a core Yogic text), drugs/magic herbs are specifically addressed as one method of attaining siddhis (psychic powers) that one will encounter on the path of Yoga. The siddhi’s are later referred to as distractions on the path to samadhi so by inference one consider magic herbs as a distraction also.

From personal experience, I believe that psychedelics (specifically entheogens) offer a great perspective on the frailty of reality for anyone bound to the material world.

This is from I.K. Taimni’s translation although the message is similar in several others:

4.1 The Siddhis are the result of birth, drugs, Mantras, austerities or Samadhi.

Some translations expand on “ausadhi” to refer to an inner elixir. This is quite interesting in regard to the long held myth in psychedelic circles that DMT is produced in small amounts by the pineal gland (as yet unproven, but recently found in the pineal gland of rats).

A Google search will dig up a lot of “distraction” on this subject.

I specifically wanted to address Gisele’s comment about “drugs” in the context of Yoga — it’s right there in one of our core Yogic texts.

Hey Kara-Leah, Thanks so much for writing this!! searching the web to see if teaching without a certificate can be done and i stumbled across this piece of gold!! As a Musician / Music teacher saving up for YTT seems like a crazy uphill battle. Like a dream that stays just out of arms reach. But this article just gave me a bit of hope and it is so much appreciated!!! Thanks for that, stay rad sister!!